KPFK

KPFK (90.7 FM) is a listener-sponsored radio station based in North Hollywood, California, United States, which serves Southern California, and also streams 24 hours a day via the Internet. It was the second of five stations in the non-commercial, listener-sponsored Pacifica Foundation network.

KPFK 90.7 FM began broadcasting in April 1959, twelve years after the Pacifica Foundation was created by pacifist Lewis Hill, and ten years after the network's flagship station, KPFA, was founded in Berkeley. KPFK also broadcasts on booster KPFK-FM1 along the Malibu coast, K258BS (99.5 MHz) in China Lake, K254AH (98.7 MHz) in Isla Vista and K229BO 93.7 MHz in Rancho Bernardo, San Diego.

With its 110,000-watt main transmitter atop Mount Wilson, KPFK is one of the most powerful FM stations in the western United States. The station can be heard from the California/Mexico border to Santa Barbara to Ridgecrest/China Lake. A second 10-watt translator is licensed in Isla Vista, California, a census-designated place outside Santa Barbara. The transmitter for that station is located atop Gibraltar Peak, allowing its broadcast to be heard over a large portion of southern Santa Barbara County.

Funding

The station is part of the ''Pacifica Network'' which has 5 radio stations besides KPFK, and provides programming to over 150 affiliates.

Operating costs are covered primarily by donations from listener-sponsors and sponsored events. The 501(c)3 non-profit station runs no paid commercial advertisements or sponsored programming. Memberships at a minimum donation of $25 allow participation in the election of Local Station Board members.

Local Station Board (LSB)

In two years during a 3-year cycle, station members and staff elect the Local Station Board (LSB) as required by the Pacifica Foundation Bylaws. The KPFK LSB elects members from its body to the Pacifica Foundation board of directors and has support and advisory duties for the station. The full LSB meets monthly, and committees of the LSB meet on both regular and ad hoc bases.

Programming

Like all Pacifica stations, KPFK has, since its inception run an eclectic schedule of performing arts, public affairs, and news. Many programs are available through the Pacifica Network for rebroadcast to affiliate stations and are streamed for a limited period on the Online Archives.

Maintaining its adherence to Pacifica founder Lew Hill's Mission, KPFK focuses on news, public affairs, and performance of local interest, while blending in nationally and internationally focused programming.

Programming is primarily English language, but includes twenty-two hours broadcast in Spanish five evenings per week, Monday - Thursday, and Saturday.

With the rest of the Pacifica Foundation stations and in accord with the Mission's commitment to dialogue, KPFK maintains community access to the airwaves, which was stated as:

History

In 1974, Will Lewis, the general manager of the station at the time, famously refused to turn over tapes acquired from the Symbionese Liberation Army after the terrorist group's kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. After repeated requests by the FBI and subpoenaed, Lewis cited the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press to no avail at a grand jury and was sent to federal prison for 15 days at Terminal Island. Lewis was finally released by Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas. Lewis shared a prison cell with controversial LSD guru Timothy Leary.

Lewis was just the second media representative to ever be sent to jail on a freedom of the press issue, the first was Los Angeles Times reporter Bill Farr in 1970 for not revealing sources to a story written during the Charles Manson case.

Lewis progressive changes at KPFK during the 1970s turned the Pacifica station into one of the most popular in the nation where many celebrity activists were able to express their views without censorship from mainstream media. Actors Martin Sheen, Paul Newman, Jane Fonda and her then politician husband Tom Hayden, who stood trial in the Chicago Seven case, were among many high profile visitors at the station during Lewis' leadership.

Lewis was a manager ahead of his times. In 1974, he was the first to introduce a radio show produced and hosted exclusively by and for the gay community "The Great Gay Radio Conspiracy" as Greg Gordon, Enrich Murrello, and Colin McQueen began the program at 11pm the 3rd Tuesday of the every month. This controversial program eventually was referred to as IMRU as it created great consternation for a mostly conservative audience. Today, the program is still a fixture on KPFK as the longest running LBGTQ program some 48 years later.

KPFK was the only full service public radio station in Los Angeles during the early 1970s. Lewis and the station won awards for its Watergate coverage, including the Golden Mike Award to reporter Mike Hodel.

*1959: The Pacifica Foundation begins its second station—KPFK. Terry Drinkwater is its first General Manager.
*1961: KPFK wins Pacifica's second George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting.
*1962: The FCC withholds the license renewals of KPFA, KPFB, and KPFK pending its investigation into "communist affiliations." Pacifica was never cited (see The Investigator).
*1963: KPFK runs the very first Renaissance Faire as a fundraiser (the event is managed by Theme Events Limited Renaissance fair#History of the fairs in America).
*July 24, 1966: The first broadcast of Peter Bergman's ''Radio Free Oz''
*November 17, 1966: The first appearance of The Firesign Theatre on ''Radio Free Oz''
*1974: The Symbionese Liberation Army delivers the Patty Hearst tapes to KPFA and KPFK. The KPFK manager is jailed for refusing to turn the tapes over to the FBI.
*August 31, 1986: Jerker, a Robert Chesley play dramatizes the reflections of a man dying of AIDS, airs on Pacifica station KPFK. Because it included graphic sexual language, the FCC ruled that it violated an indecency policy.
*1987: Ladysmith Black Mambazo makes their first on-air U.S. radio broadcast on KPFK.
*1992: CPB Board member Victor Gold targets KPFK for strident African American programming and controversial speech aired during Black History month, by filing an FCC complaint.

Translators and booster

In addition to the main station, KPFK is relayed by an additional four translators and one booster to widen its broadcast area.

References

External links

FCC History cards for KPFK
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Pacifica Radio FoundationPacifica Radio ArchivesPacifica Radio Archives weekly radio series

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Pacifica Foundation stations
Counterculture of the 1960s
PFK
501(c)(3) organizations
Non-profit organizations based in Los Angeles
Radio stations established in 1959
1959 establishments in California